Petrobras (PBR.A) Stock Moving Higher Following Increased Rating

Petrobras (PBR.A) stock is up after Tudor upgraded the company to 'buy' from 'accumulate' this morning.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Petrobras (PBR.A) were trading higher by 1.34% to $8.34 in midday trading Wednesday, after analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co increased their rating on the state owned oil company.

The firm upgraded the troubled Brazilian oil giant to "buy" from "accumulate" with a $15 price target earlier today.

Analysts expect the company to generate free cash flow of roughly $15 billion from pre-salt by the year 2020.

Still, Tudor thinks the company's current strategy will focus on "maintaining a profitable downstream with control of pricing, measures to reduce debt and improve leverage ratios, pre-salt growth from its core assets and trimming activity outside of this area."

Also, Petrobras may unveil a revamped investment plan for 2015 to 2019 on June 23 with significant cuts in capital spending, according to a report in the Valor Econômico newspaper today.

The current plan calls for investments of $206.8 billion between 2014 to 2018 at Petrobras, according to Reuters.

Brazil-based Petrobras is an integrated oil and gas company, engaged in the research, extraction, refining, processing, trade and transport of oil from wells, shale and other rocks.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR as a Sell with a ratings score of D+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR (PBR.A) a SELL. This is driven by a few notable weaknesses, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its disappointing return on equity, generally high debt management risk, generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and feeble growth in its earnings per share."